Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Erie Railroad, rail transportation line designed to connect the mouth of the Hudson River with the Great Lakes region. The New York and Erie RR Company was enfranchised and incorporated in 1832, and c...

(Encyclopedia) Frederick William III, 1770–1840, king of Prussia (1797–1840), son and successor of Frederick William II. Well-intentioned but weak and vacillating, he endeavored to maintain neutrality in the Nap...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 View into the eye of a hurricane showing the structure of the surrounding cloud wall hurricane, tropical cyclone in which winds attain speeds greater than 74 mi (119 km) per hr. Wind speeds gu...

(Encyclopedia) Baldwin, Robert, 1804–58, Canadian statesman, leader of the movement for representative government in Canada, b. York (now Toronto), Ont. His father, William Warren Baldwin (1775–1844), was a lead...

(Encyclopedia) rock carvings and paintings, designs inscribed on rock surfaces and huge stone monuments in many parts of the world by prehistoric or preindustrial peoples. They have been found on every continent and...

(Encyclopedia) Schurz, Carl sho͝orts [key], 1829–1906, American political leader, b. Germany. He studied at the Univ. of Bonn and participated in the revolutionary uprisings of 1848–49 in Germany. Compelled to ...

(Encyclopedia) Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant bōˈrĭgärd [key], 1818–93, Confederate general, b. St. Bernard parish, La., grad. West Point, 1838. As engineer on the staff of Winfield Scott in the Mexican Wa...

(Encyclopedia) greenback, in U.S. history, legal tender notes unsecured by specie (coin). In 1862, under the exigencies of the Civil War, the U.S. government first issued legal tender notes (popularly called greenba...

(Encyclopedia) castle, type of fortified dwelling characteristic of the Middle Ages. Fortification of towns had been in practice since antiquity, but in the 9th cent. feudal lords began to develop the private fortre...

(Encyclopedia) mausoleum môsəlēˈəm [key], a sepulchral structure or tomb, especially one of some size and architectural pretension, so called from the sepulcher of that name at Halicarnassus, Asia Minor, erecte...